HMS Arrow

H.M.S. Arrow

Type 21 Frigate

My favorite ship. The lads on the Arrow were just brilliant, from the Wardroom down to the messdecks it was a great ships company. The only type 21 frigate I served on, which was a shame because I really enjoyed my time onboard. HMS Arrow, she was armed with the newer computer controlled mark8, 4.5 inch single gun turret (which could fire twice as many round per minute than the twin barreled gun turret on the Leander class.Just behind the turret was 4 Exocet missile launchers (not used during the Falklands due to having nothing to fire at). She also had aft seacat and a Lynx helicopter.
When I joined the Arrow I was an Able seaman, Single and never been to war. How things change, I left three years later a Leading seaman, Married and the Falklands war under my belt. Like the Jupiter the Arrow had a brilliant ships company which made life onboard much more enjoyable.

In 1982 Argentina decided that the Falkland Islands should be re-named the Malvinas and be part of Argentina. the Falkland Islands are 8,000 miles away from the UK, but only 400 mile off the coast of Argentina. Some people may think that Argentina have more right to the Falkland Islands than the UK does, maybe they are right or not.
In May 1982 HMS Arrow along with many other British warships were in Gibraltar, we had just completed a major exercise (operation awkward) which is a mock attack on the ships alongside. After a few good nights out we sailed for home, only to be told that instead of turning right out of the Med and heading for home we turned left. The rumors started flying straight away as to where we were going, but the skipper soon put us right by announcing it on the main broadcast. The Argies had invaded the Falklands he said, where's the Falklands we all said. Some wondered what the Argies were doing invading an Island off Scotland. Three weeks later we were shot at by enemy aircraft on our first day at the Falkland Islands.
On our first day, having just finished Naval gunfire support on Port Stanley airport, we were steaming away in line abreast formation with HMS Glamorgan and HMS Alacrity when 3 aircraft appeared off the coastline we believe there were originally 4 aircraft but the Argies shot one of them down thinking they were British. My mate Ian Britnall was on the aft seacat deck and saw the aircraft approaching, thinking they were friendly (because the Argies had shot one down) he started taking photos of them, thats when they started shooting. Ian caught a piece of schrapnel in his lung and was the first casualty of the Falklands war. He was taken by helo to the Canberra (hospital ship) and made a recovery.
Our next major event was Naval gunfire support on Goose Green, which by all account was very sucessful, the spotter ashore told us the gunfire was very accurate and was a great help to the troops, however we had to stop early due to the gun barrel over heating.
The worst day was when HMS Sheffield was hit by an Exocet missile, we were tasked to go alongside her to get the survivors off. We were dispatched at full speed with HMS Yarmouth to Sheffields position on the way our sonar picked up submarine contact, but we were assured that there were no subs in the area, however Yarmouth started throwing mortors into the water to be on the safe side. Meanwhile we went alongside the Sheffield and helped fire fighting and getting survivors off. Our main surface radar (which is gyro controlled to keep it level as the ship rolls) was knocked off kilter and rendered useless which was a bit scary as I was the only person left in the ops room as everyone else was helping on the upper deck and with no main radar you can't really see what the hell is going on. Luckily it was soon fixed and we wwere on our way with most of the Sheffield ships company now happily on board drinking all our beer.
It was very sad to see HMS Antelope on fire the first night we got into San Carlos water, then later watch as her magazine exploded and she broke in half. As if that wasn't bad enough, later that week the Argonaut had a major fire onboard which all but put her out of action.
For some reason the Argies were attacking all the warships, of course this was a big mistake. Sink a couple of tankers or supply ships and we would have been completely knackered. They did sink the Atlantic conveyor, which was a major blow to us. She was carrying some more badly needed Harrier aircraft.
After the war was over, we sailed back up to the Ascension Islands and I flew home on leave from there, while the ship sailed the rest of the way home. I missed out on the glory of sailing back into Plymouth harbour with all the families waiting on the jetty, but at least I managed to get home a week earlier than the ship.We flew back from Ascension in a Hercules C130, it took 14 hours with a stop in Dakar to re-fuel. We were supposed to land at Brize Norton where all the families were waiting, but we were diverted to RAF Lyneham, where none of the families were waiting.